whilst you make a valid point - that the above advice sounds (and is) over the heads of most users - please note that this person is having trouble because of buying new, cutting edge hardware. It takes linux distros a little while to catch up.
OTOH I'm sure MS doesn't have this problem and Ubuntu installs could do with some far better failsafe measures.
We were the last year through in my Uni (one of the UK top 10 for CS, 10 years ago) that started by learning C. Java replaced it as the starter language.
I think that's a bit of a mistake.
They were already telling us then not to worry too much about memory or speed, unless you took the specialist courses in optimisation. From where I'm sitting now, as an open systems engineer working on high throughput memory-resident databases, that seems like criminal negligence. I should imagine an embedded engineer would feel similarly.
"Yes it means I have to carry a shoulder bag around with me everywhere"
Technology has turned you female.
Only instead of lipstick, tampons, tissues and chocolate, it's shiny devices, protective cases, game cartridges, memory cards... Have fun with that.
Music on the phone is just as good as from an iPod. You can also now get phones that take memory cards, in a discrete little slot, that bring them up to the capacity of an iPod touch. Games are not anything like a DS. But then it's not a huge number of people that feel the need to have games with them *all* the time. I have tetris on my phone, it keeps me amused on public transport.
Face it, not many people want to carry all those things everywhere and, like me, they just wouldn't bother with a camera or a music player seperately.
I'm not referring to DRM but encrypted and untraceable technologies like Tor and Freenet.
Ways to hide p2p from ISPs, **AAs, governments etc.
It only takes one person or one group to write the software, and then everyone can use it. I don't like freenet and its ilk personally, I'm not such an avid lover of absolute free speech that I'll run a node and give hard drive space to content I don't have the power to vet - the amount of child porn on there is staggering and disgusting - but others will do it. If Governments drive file sharing that far underground then, much like the marijuana, it'll end up getting wound up in all sorts of horrible shit.
Hos points were based on totally faulty premises, which I destroyed. One doesn't need to address his so called points if one can elucidate the fact that they are piled on an edifice of bull excrement.
Voting in the blues rather than the reds will achieve very little, much like the situation on the other side of the atlantic (IMHO).
Real change, unfortunately, is very difficult to achieve. Most of the public seem to like to think in terms of only two factions, right or wrong, total opposites, for us or against us....
"You think measures like imposing a levy on all blank media (aka a tax on back-ups) are fairer?"
Didn't say that, just that there are other ways and a government crackdown on its own citizens is not inevitable, as the OP implied.
"It doesn't even seem to occur to you that the IP framework in general might also be in the interests of the population."
Did I say it wasn't? I think it is a good thing to have a framework and the nature of the framework could be a source of some good, honest, serious debate on the nature of ideas, property and ownership alongside how best to encourage a creative society.
"If you screw the content providers now, who will provide new content in future?"
Who said I was in favour of screwing anyone? I was pointing out the fallacies in the OP, his weak assumptions and stupid conclusions. I tried not to state anything that could be construed as my own position (with the exception that I think a lot of media is shite). Re-read my post.
"If you start by taking the view that the law is irrelevant, you aren't going to convince many people that your intentions are anything but self-serving."
You should always start by taking the view that the law is irrelevant. The law should spring from conclusions, not be taken as some self-evident fact. We should constantly re-evaluate it from base principles. The fact we don't is one of the major problems in western society, IMHO.
"I'm afraid you're the one with the bad logic here, not the GP. The assumption is not that every download represents a lost sale, merely that some downloads represent lost sales. I don't see how you can credibly argue that this is not the case."
He says noone can compete with free, implying that free downloads are directly competing with sales. There's little to no evidence supporting that. My logic stands.
"If that's what it is, then why are so many people downloading it, when so few download "good" material? For a guy so concerned about the interests of the population, you sure don't know much about what the population seems to want."
The OP doesn't say who/what the people he knows produce. It may not be what people are downloading. There is more media produced now than at any other time in history. 99% of it will fail anyway, because it's rubbish or doesn't attractr attention. The OP was using another oft used fallacy - "muh business is failing, it must be them pirates stealing our stuff!!". It's perfectly possible that, even where there are many many pirates around, that your business is failing because (like 99% of media) it's either godawful or just not popular. Also, IMHO, "the population" are a bunch of imbeciles. That doesn't detract from their right to self determination and representative government, nor to re-evaluation of the balance of rights between the general public and the rights of individual creators of works.
"It seems to me that the problem with your argument is exactly that it is not sustainable."
Which argument? That the OP was talking shit? That it seems sustainable because hollywood and other places are still raking in plenty of cash? That the decline of sales is not necessarily linked to piracy?
I have no idea if the movie/music studios themselves are sustainable. We'll see. But that's not what I was on about and it's a fallacy to assume that their misfortune is solely or substantially down to piracy.
"And the government declares such tools to be accessories to copyright infringement, starts fining anyone who appears to be using encrypted traffic for any purpose on the assumption that they are infringing someone's copyright, and now collective punishment catching many innocent people along the way and undermining tools with legitimate, legal uses is back on the air."
Yup. Welcome to the 21st century, where governments are at war with large sections of their own people. Ain't democracy grand? It died the minute those in power decided they knew what was best for us.
"Does anyone here REALLY think that this whole story will end any other way?"
It has in other places, your incredulity at that fact doesn't make it untrue though. Look at Canada, Spain, Germany etc.
"Are governments really going to say "tough shit" and encourage people to just pirate content?"
Some are imposing a tax, others are investigating just completely legalising p2p. Yes, remember that democracy is about the interests of the population, not just IP "owners".
"Like it or not 99% of the content on p2p services is copyrighted."
Irrelevant
"Like it or not, no business can compete with free, and still pay its staff."
Also false. Many people both download and buy an awful lot of media. On average it has been found the "pirates" buy more media than other folks. Many use p2p as a way of sampling things before deciding. Some don't, but you also make the fallacious assumption that each download is a lost sale.
"People I know who work in the sector are worried about future prospects and already looking at getting out into a 'bricks and mortar' style trade where they know they will get paid and not ripped off."
An awful lot of what's out there at the moment is lowest-common-denominator BULLSHIT. That's why it's failing.
"I have no sympathy with anyone who gets caught with this. Everyone pirating content is just leeching off the honest people who don't mind paying for their entertainment. It's fair to nobody, and unsustainable."
What is this "fair"? It seems perfectly sustainable to me.
"And to anyone saying "it wont work 100%". No it won't. Nor does locking my door work against a determined burglar, but it will help deter casual piracy, and its the mass casual piracy that is really hurting."
And someone releases a product with the crypto built in and "mass casual" piracy is back on the air.
Final proof the government is working against the citizenry, doesn't trust or respect us or have any fucking idea about either technolo9gy or freedom.
Enforcing this would require constant monitoring of all communication over the net. I'm not suprised our government doesn't see any issue with this as they are totally morally bankrupt. One tenth of the population is doing this and the first thought is surveillance and punishment. Good going.
I hadn't realised how much they were in the pocket of the **AA/BPI etc though.
This is a civil matter, for civil courts that should decide a reasonable fine and that be the end of it.
Scanning - never had an issue. In fact Ubuntu worked with my HP all in one out of the box. On windows I had to download nearly a hundred megabytes of drivers and assorted crapps that I didn't want.
Photoshop CS2 has platinum rating with WINE. I use WINE to play portal, it's ace.
Media support is far better than you claim - try VLC. It has yet to choke on anything. Compared to the joke that is windows media player... Well, I use VLC on windows too as it just works.
My TV card also works perfectly under Kaffeine. If your online tv merchant doesn't work with Linux, that's their fault.
Wireless on my laptop worked out of the box. YMMV.
"The point I'm making is, if you use Linux as your desktop, it's cause you only use a very limited subset of the functions, or because you're trying to prove a political or philosophical point."
Nope, my choice was Vista (which came with the laptop) or Ubuntu. I wasn't going to pay for or pirate XP. Ubuntu is easier and more functional.
"But for regular use by a regular human being, a Linux desktop is a mediocre substitute that provides you with a bare minimum of services"
Healthcare is a basic service. Your cynical comments about people making healthcare decisions for you are ridiculous and ill informed. The numbrer of peope either without healthcare or bankrupted by it in the US is disgusting.
Other than that, yes, I agree, governments can and will try to smuggle this in however they can. In the UK it's "teh terrists!!" that are providing the cover story.
"join reality where they're both companies hawking anything they can for a dollar."
Where did I claim any different?
"Regarding AIX, so you *are* or *are not* claiming that IBM wrote AIX themselves...? If you *are* saying that well, you're wrong, they built it on System V. If you *are not* saying that, well that goes to my original point on that subject."
I'm saying neither, that the world is a maze of greys and you'll grow up some day to appreciate that. It was based on System V, there is a lot of new development in there that's all IBM.
"Regarding my "assinine comment that IBM were not pushing UNIX before Linux" they weren't pushing Unix they were pushing AIX."
Yup, a type of UNIX. You said they weren't pushing *nix. If you want to interpret that as a strict regular expression then no, AIX and *nix would not work as a pattern match. However the more common usage of the term *nix (or more properly *NIX) is to mean any of the UNIX operating systems, of which AIX is one. And which IBM have been pushing for a long time, certainly longer than Linux.
"You want on one hand to claim that IBM wrote AIX as if it was their software"
I didn't make the claim that they wrote Sys V, I make the claim that they have put a lot of new development into AIX since it was branched. What do you mean by "as if it was their software"? Do you mean that they wrote they first line? No. Do you mean that the bulk of what's in AIX now is their code? Well yes, it is.
"You want on one hand to claim that IBM wrote AIX as if it was their software but at the same time you want to take my point that IBM didn't push other UNIX OSes which they would have had to pay other companies for until 'free' Linux came along and say that IBM was pushing Unix...? It's not assinine, it correct and you know it."
What you said originally was:
"Funny how they weren't pushing other *nix OSes until a 'free' one came along, LOL.
Which is just plain wrong. And it's asinine that you keep trying to argue otherwise.
"IBM only push Linux because it costs IBM nothing and they rake in money."
And where did I claim otherwise?
"STFU"? What are you 15 years old?"
Nope, wrong again, this is getting to be a habit for you.
"(1)Operating Systems are tools in a toolbox, nothing more, nothing less."
Indeed. Once again, please point out where I said differently.
"(2)Public companies are like nations - they don't have friends, they have interests."
And again, show me the post where I said otherwise. I didn't. I said they make lots of money and they make decent software. very different propositions. Plug your brain in before your next comment.
That having people stationed all over the world and going on wars of adventure on shaky evidence might just not be the best use of taxpayer money. So yes, shave the defence fund.
"By this type of reasoning the billions of dollars laid out each year for Microsoft Windows must be from informed users who know what they're doing, right?"
The difference is that Windows users are a herd that buy cheap equipment they know nothing about, whereas IBM purchasers employ their own specialists and make lengthy, well informed decisions with acceptance criteria and full on contracts.
"As regards AIX, no offense, but AIX is based upon System V. Are you trying to suggest that IBM engineered something new with it?"
1. Yup, there's loads of stuff in AIX you won't find anywhere else 2. I didn't say it was new, I was merely responding to your asinine comment that IBM were not pushing UNIX before Linux.
"I'd love to hear from you about what software IBM makes billions of dollars own that it developed...?"
And I'd love you to STFU and stop twisting my words. Yes, IBM acquire a lot of companies and their software. That's not all they do though, they continually research new techniques and they employ tens of thousands of software engineers on existing and new products within the company.
"LOL, AIX was built on System V, so you think that after 21 years of modifications even though everything was built upon System V and the kernel and OS are still Unix, that means IBM developed AIX by itself?"
AIX today is massively more capable than Sys V was 21 years ago. This is not a case of bugfixes. If you actually worked with multiple UNIX flavours you'd get to know the differences. The fact that they still have a lot in common says a hell of a lot about the companies that make them and the benefits of Open Standards.
"IBM's sofware division? What's that? You mean the product offerings in their services division?"
It's huge, don't be an idiot. IBM have some of the best software on the planet. Yes, they do buy a lot of it in, is that whay you're so bitter? Did your company get bought out and you got booted?
"Why do you think they aren't in the consumer level software business?"
Because there's more money to be made selling custom solutions to large enterprises. You can't afford IBM.
"Of course IBM are making a big play on Open Source. They are terrible at making software and marketing it."
Tell that to the enterprise sector that lays out billions each year for IBM Software. Oh, sorry, you're a consumer or a SME? You aren't the target audience.
"They've learned in the 80's that they're not good at the ISV thing, and struggled mightily in the early 90's until they could find a way to bump up those services number and lo and behold Linux comes to their rescue. Funny how they weren't pushing other *nix OSes until a 'free' one came along, LOL."
Err, there's this little ting called AIX you might want to look up. Also OS390/z/OS's POSIX caabilities and UNIX compat layers.
"The software side of IBM is a service company at heart because everything else died."
IBM is a massively diverse company that sell all sorts of things. This is because they recognise the market fluctuates and different divisions will profit at different times. Services bring in a hell of a lot of money, but then so do software sales. Billions.
"When a company that used to be a monopolist is now one of the staunchest defenders of openness, I really do hope there is no hidden agenda here."
Money. That is IBM's agenda. They're getting better at acquiring it too.
"IBM used to make overpriced hardware sold at tremendous profit"
Errr.... i/z/pSeries? Not that I know what the profit margin is, or even if it's overpriced, but they still make and sell quite a lot and are constantly inventive.
Open standards, to IBM, mean that when a (large, deep-pocketed) customer comes and asks IBM consultancy what they should use where, and IBM consultancy says "buy IBM, buy our hardware, buy our software, buy our support" and the customer says "but does it play nicely with others?" they can say "yes, look, you can put linux on our hardware and we support all these (real) standards". This is as well as the usual "your ROI and TTV will be this much and this date"
And the more that open standards are a) well implemented and b) widely adopted, the more IBM (from their point of view) can sell their services, software AND expensive hardware, because they believe their stuf is best in class. Which it generally is.
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whilst you make a valid point - that the above advice sounds (and is) over the heads of most users - please note that this person is having trouble because of buying new, cutting edge hardware. It takes linux distros a little while to catch up.
OTOH I'm sure MS doesn't have this problem and Ubuntu installs could do with some far better failsafe measures.
UK too.
We were the last year through in my Uni (one of the UK top 10 for CS, 10 years ago) that started by learning C. Java replaced it as the starter language.
I think that's a bit of a mistake.
They were already telling us then not to worry too much about memory or speed, unless you took the specialist courses in optimisation. From where I'm sitting now, as an open systems engineer working on high throughput memory-resident databases, that seems like criminal negligence. I should imagine an embedded engineer would feel similarly.
"Yes it means I have to carry a shoulder bag around with me everywhere"
Technology has turned you female.
Only instead of lipstick, tampons, tissues and chocolate, it's shiny devices, protective cases, game cartridges, memory cards... Have fun with that.
Music on the phone is just as good as from an iPod. You can also now get phones that take memory cards, in a discrete little slot, that bring them up to the capacity of an iPod touch.
Games are not anything like a DS. But then it's not a huge number of people that feel the need to have games with them *all* the time. I have tetris on my phone, it keeps me amused on public transport.
Face it, not many people want to carry all those things everywhere and, like me, they just wouldn't bother with a camera or a music player seperately.
As I say, try the fishman affidavit. That has some stuff in and is a matter of public legl record - cannot be censored.
I'm not referring to DRM but encrypted and untraceable technologies like Tor and Freenet.
Ways to hide p2p from ISPs, **AAs, governments etc.
It only takes one person or one group to write the software, and then everyone can use it.
I don't like freenet and its ilk personally, I'm not such an avid lover of absolute free speech that I'll run a node and give hard drive space to content I don't have the power to vet - the amount of child porn on there is staggering and disgusting - but others will do it. If Governments drive file sharing that far underground then, much like the marijuana, it'll end up getting wound up in all sorts of horrible shit.
Hos points were based on totally faulty premises, which I destroyed. One doesn't need to address his so called points if one can elucidate the fact that they are piled on an edifice of bull excrement.
Voting in the blues rather than the reds will achieve very little, much like the situation on the other side of the atlantic (IMHO).
Real change, unfortunately, is very difficult to achieve. Most of the public seem to like to think in terms of only two factions, right or wrong, total opposites, for us or against us....
Damn shame.
"You think measures like imposing a levy on all blank media (aka a tax on back-ups) are fairer?"
Didn't say that, just that there are other ways and a government crackdown on its own citizens is not inevitable, as the OP implied.
"It doesn't even seem to occur to you that the IP framework in general might also be in the interests of the population."
Did I say it wasn't? I think it is a good thing to have a framework and the nature of the framework could be a source of some good, honest, serious debate on the nature of ideas, property and ownership alongside how best to encourage a creative society.
"If you screw the content providers now, who will provide new content in future?"
Who said I was in favour of screwing anyone? I was pointing out the fallacies in the OP, his weak assumptions and stupid conclusions. I tried not to state anything that could be construed as my own position (with the exception that I think a lot of media is shite). Re-read my post.
"If you start by taking the view that the law is irrelevant, you aren't going to convince many people that your intentions are anything but self-serving."
You should always start by taking the view that the law is irrelevant. The law should spring from conclusions, not be taken as some self-evident fact. We should constantly re-evaluate it from base principles. The fact we don't is one of the major problems in western society, IMHO.
"I'm afraid you're the one with the bad logic here, not the GP. The assumption is not that every download represents a lost sale, merely that some downloads represent lost sales. I don't see how you can credibly argue that this is not the case."
He says noone can compete with free, implying that free downloads are directly competing with sales. There's little to no evidence supporting that. My logic stands.
"If that's what it is, then why are so many people downloading it, when so few download "good" material? For a guy so concerned about the interests of the population, you sure don't know much about what the population seems to want."
The OP doesn't say who/what the people he knows produce. It may not be what people are downloading. There is more media produced now than at any other time in history. 99% of it will fail anyway, because it's rubbish or doesn't attractr attention.
The OP was using another oft used fallacy - "muh business is failing, it must be them pirates stealing our stuff!!". It's perfectly possible that, even where there are many many pirates around, that your business is failing because (like 99% of media) it's either godawful or just not popular.
Also, IMHO, "the population" are a bunch of imbeciles. That doesn't detract from their right to self determination and representative government, nor to re-evaluation of the balance of rights between the general public and the rights of individual creators of works.
"It seems to me that the problem with your argument is exactly that it is not sustainable."
Which argument? That the OP was talking shit? That it seems sustainable because hollywood and other places are still raking in plenty of cash? That the decline of sales is not necessarily linked to piracy?
I have no idea if the movie/music studios themselves are sustainable. We'll see. But that's not what I was on about and it's a fallacy to assume that their misfortune is solely or substantially down to piracy.
"And the government declares such tools to be accessories to copyright infringement, starts fining anyone who appears to be using encrypted traffic for any purpose on the assumption that they are infringing someone's copyright, and now collective punishment catching many innocent people along the way and undermining tools with legitimate, legal uses is back on the air."
Yup. Welcome to the 21st century, where governments are at war with large sections of their own people. Ain't democracy grand? It died the minute those in power decided they knew what was best for us.
"Does anyone here REALLY think that this whole story will end any other way?"
It has in other places, your incredulity at that fact doesn't make it untrue though. Look at Canada, Spain, Germany etc.
"Are governments really going to say "tough shit" and encourage people to just pirate content?"
Some are imposing a tax, others are investigating just completely legalising p2p. Yes, remember that democracy is about the interests of the population, not just IP "owners".
"Like it or not 99% of the content on p2p services is copyrighted."
Irrelevant
"Like it or not, no business can compete with free, and still pay its staff."
Also false. Many people both download and buy an awful lot of media. On average it has been found the "pirates" buy more media than other folks. Many use p2p as a way of sampling things before deciding. Some don't, but you also make the fallacious assumption that each download is a lost sale.
"People I know who work in the sector are worried about future prospects and already looking at getting out into a 'bricks and mortar' style trade where they know they will get paid and not ripped off."
An awful lot of what's out there at the moment is lowest-common-denominator BULLSHIT. That's why it's failing.
"I have no sympathy with anyone who gets caught with this. Everyone pirating content is just leeching off the honest people who don't mind paying for their entertainment. It's fair to nobody, and unsustainable."
What is this "fair"? It seems perfectly sustainable to me.
"And to anyone saying "it wont work 100%". No it won't. Nor does locking my door work against a determined burglar, but it will help deter casual piracy, and its the mass casual piracy that is really hurting."
And someone releases a product with the crypto built in and "mass casual" piracy is back on the air.
In summary: FAIL.
Final proof the government is working against the citizenry, doesn't trust or respect us or have any fucking idea about either technolo9gy or freedom.
Enforcing this would require constant monitoring of all communication over the net. I'm not suprised our government doesn't see any issue with this as they are totally morally bankrupt. One tenth of the population is doing this and the first thought is surveillance and punishment. Good going.
I hadn't realised how much they were in the pocket of the **AA/BPI etc though.
This is a civil matter, for civil courts that should decide a reasonable fine and that be the end of it.
The documents ae still out there. Look up xenu.net, operation clambake, the fishman affidavit and various others.
whyaretheydead.net also makes a harrowing read.
They're also for keeping opportunists away. And making sure your car alarm, immobiliser etc spring into action when they're circumvented.
"The sooner Linus and everyone else pulls their head out of the sand and addresses this, the better off we'll be."
Linus is a (or the) kernel developer, not the head of Gnome or KDE. Totally, utterly seperate worlds.
... a German friend of mine said. Why is it called Excel? it should be called "Get By".
Suspend/Hibernate - you haven't configured it
Scanning - never had an issue. In fact Ubuntu worked with my HP all in one out of the box. On windows I had to download nearly a hundred megabytes of drivers and assorted crapps that I didn't want.
Photoshop CS2 has platinum rating with WINE.
I use WINE to play portal, it's ace.
Media support is far better than you claim - try VLC. It has yet to choke on anything. Compared to the joke that is windows media player... Well, I use VLC on windows too as it just works.
My TV card also works perfectly under Kaffeine. If your online tv merchant doesn't work with Linux, that's their fault.
Wireless on my laptop worked out of the box. YMMV.
"The point I'm making is, if you use Linux as your desktop, it's cause you only use a very limited subset of the functions, or because you're trying to prove a political or philosophical point."
Nope, my choice was Vista (which came with the laptop) or Ubuntu. I wasn't going to pay for or pirate XP.
Ubuntu is easier and more functional.
"But for regular use by a regular human being, a Linux desktop is a mediocre substitute that provides you with a bare minimum of services"
That's an outright lie.
Then you've made it wrong and the voices are still getting through.
I recommend another layer of foil.
Saying, muttering, yes, always have.
Not actually doing anything or turning anyone away. Nor bankrupting sick people.
Healthcare is a basic service. Your cynical comments about people making healthcare decisions for you are ridiculous and ill informed. The numbrer of peope either without healthcare or bankrupted by it in the US is disgusting.
Other than that, yes, I agree, governments can and will try to smuggle this in however they can. In the UK it's "teh terrists!!" that are providing the cover story.
"join reality where they're both companies hawking anything they can for a dollar."
Where did I claim any different?
"Regarding AIX, so you *are* or *are not* claiming that IBM wrote AIX themselves...? If you *are* saying that well, you're wrong, they built it on System V. If you *are not* saying that, well that goes to my original point on that subject."
I'm saying neither, that the world is a maze of greys and you'll grow up some day to appreciate that. It was based on System V, there is a lot of new development in there that's all IBM.
"Regarding my "assinine comment that IBM were not pushing UNIX before Linux" they weren't pushing Unix they were pushing AIX."
Yup, a type of UNIX. You said they weren't pushing *nix. If you want to interpret that as a strict regular expression then no, AIX and *nix would not work as a pattern match. However the more common usage of the term *nix (or more properly *NIX) is to mean any of the UNIX operating systems, of which AIX is one. And which IBM have been pushing for a long time, certainly longer than Linux.
"You want on one hand to claim that IBM wrote AIX as if it was their software"
I didn't make the claim that they wrote Sys V, I make the claim that they have put a lot of new development into AIX since it was branched. What do you mean by "as if it was their software"? Do you mean that they wrote they first line? No. Do you mean that the bulk of what's in AIX now is their code? Well yes, it is.
"You want on one hand to claim that IBM wrote AIX as if it was their software but at the same time you want to take my point that IBM didn't push other UNIX OSes which they would have had to pay other companies for until 'free' Linux came along and say that IBM was pushing Unix...? It's not assinine, it correct and you know it."
What you said originally was:
"Funny how they weren't pushing other *nix OSes until a 'free' one came along, LOL.
Which is just plain wrong. And it's asinine that you keep trying to argue otherwise.
"IBM only push Linux because it costs IBM nothing and they rake in money."
And where did I claim otherwise?
"STFU"? What are you 15 years old?"
Nope, wrong again, this is getting to be a habit for you.
"(1)Operating Systems are tools in a toolbox, nothing more, nothing less."
Indeed. Once again, please point out where I said differently.
"(2)Public companies are like nations - they don't have friends, they have interests."
And again, show me the post where I said otherwise. I didn't. I said they make lots of money and they make decent software. very different propositions. Plug your brain in before your next comment.
That having people stationed all over the world and going on wars of adventure on shaky evidence might just not be the best use of taxpayer money. So yes, shave the defence fund.
"By this type of reasoning the billions of dollars laid out each year for Microsoft Windows must be from informed users who know what they're doing, right?"
The difference is that Windows users are a herd that buy cheap equipment they know nothing about, whereas IBM purchasers employ their own specialists and make lengthy, well informed decisions with acceptance criteria and full on contracts.
"As regards AIX, no offense, but AIX is based upon System V. Are you trying to suggest that IBM engineered something new with it?"
1. Yup, there's loads of stuff in AIX you won't find anywhere else
2. I didn't say it was new, I was merely responding to your asinine comment that IBM were not pushing UNIX before Linux.
"I'd love to hear from you about what software IBM makes billions of dollars own that it developed...?"
And I'd love you to STFU and stop twisting my words. Yes, IBM acquire a lot of companies and their software. That's not all they do though, they continually research new techniques and they employ tens of thousands of software engineers on existing and new products within the company.
"LOL, AIX was built on System V, so you think that after 21 years of modifications even though everything was built upon System V and the kernel and OS are still Unix, that means IBM developed AIX by itself?"
AIX today is massively more capable than Sys V was 21 years ago. This is not a case of bugfixes. If you actually worked with multiple UNIX flavours you'd get to know the differences. The fact that they still have a lot in common says a hell of a lot about the companies that make them and the benefits of Open Standards.
"IBM's sofware division? What's that? You mean the product offerings in their services division?"
It's huge, don't be an idiot. IBM have some of the best software on the planet. Yes, they do buy a lot of it in, is that whay you're so bitter? Did your company get bought out and you got booted?
"Why do you think they aren't in the consumer level software business?"
Because there's more money to be made selling custom solutions to large enterprises. You can't afford IBM.
"Of course IBM are making a big play on Open Source. They are terrible at making software and marketing it."
Tell that to the enterprise sector that lays out billions each year for IBM Software. Oh, sorry, you're a consumer or a SME? You aren't the target audience.
"They've learned in the 80's that they're not good at the ISV thing, and struggled mightily in the early 90's until they could find a way to bump up those services number and lo and behold Linux comes to their rescue. Funny how they weren't pushing other *nix OSes until a 'free' one came along, LOL."
Err, there's this little ting called AIX you might want to look up. Also OS390/z/OS's POSIX caabilities and UNIX compat layers.
"The software side of IBM is a service company at heart because everything else died."
IBM is a massively diverse company that sell all sorts of things. This is because they recognise the market fluctuates and different divisions will profit at different times. Services bring in a hell of a lot of money, but then so do software sales. Billions.
"When a company that used to be a monopolist is now one of the staunchest defenders of openness, I really do hope there is no hidden agenda here."
Money. That is IBM's agenda. They're getting better at acquiring it too.
"IBM used to make overpriced hardware sold at tremendous profit"
Errr.... i/z/pSeries?
Not that I know what the profit margin is, or even if it's overpriced, but they still make and sell quite a lot and are constantly inventive.
Open standards, to IBM, mean that when a (large, deep-pocketed) customer comes and asks IBM consultancy what they should use where, and IBM consultancy says "buy IBM, buy our hardware, buy our software, buy our support" and the customer says "but does it play nicely with others?" they can say "yes, look, you can put linux on our hardware and we support all these (real) standards". This is as well as the usual "your ROI and TTV will be this much and this date"
And the more that open standards are a) well implemented and b) widely adopted, the more IBM (from their point of view) can sell their services, software AND expensive hardware, because they believe their stuf is best in class. Which it generally is.
IBM sell hardware and Software too. Open standards allow IBM to suggest its own software and hardware as part of its consultancy :)